


Help

by Katybug1992



Series: Tumblr Prompts [80]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: background sprace, jack race and romeo are brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 05:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18114686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katybug1992/pseuds/Katybug1992
Summary: Sometimes Racer just needs Jack to step up and help him.





	Help

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a quote from Unfabulous

Jack walked into the apartment gingerly. Race had been short with him for a couple of days. He knew it was his fault, but he didn’t remember what exactly it was.

“Hey.” Jack greeted, walking into the kitchen, where Race had started on dinner while supervising Romeo’s homework.

“Hey.” Race’s tone was flat, not looking up from the ground beef he was working on.

“How was your day?” Jack tried again.

“Fine.” Race replied, directing Romeo to concentrate.

“I pissed you off.” Jack responded, “But I don’t know how.”

“Guess.” Racer raised a challenging eyebrow.

“Was it my night to pick up dinner?” Jack asked, throwing out a guess then cringing at the look Racer gave him in return.

“It hasn’t been your night to pick up dinner since you ripped the label off an old ketchup bottle and told us it was marinara sauce.” Racer replied.

“Then -”

“I asked you if you could go to the Parent-Teacher Conference at Romeo’s school, his principal wanted to talk to one of us. I asked you to go because Albert and Jojo couldn’t cover my classes for me. You blew it off.”

“I didn’t blow it off.” Jack responded, the words leaving his mouth before he could stop them, “I just forgot.”

“That’s not much better!” Racer fired back, slamming the spatula down, “I don’t ask you to do a lot. I do everything to take care of our brother. I rarely ask you for help. But sometimes I need it!”

“All you have to do is ask,” Jack realized quickly was the very wrong way to respond.

“I did!!” Racer turned to look at him, eyes blazing, “And everytime I so, you either complain or just don’t do it! Now, I have to rework my scheduler this week so I can meet with the principal and all his teachers.”

Turning his attention to Romeo, he said, “I am fully prepared to ground you.”

“Tony…” Jack tried to come up with something to say.

“Just go.” Race’s voice was quiet and hard as he turned back to dinner, “I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

Jack opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and headed to his room, trying to come up with a way to fix things.

He was in the middle of a plan that was definitely too extravagant and definitely would not work when his phone rang, the “Imperial March” playing from the device.

“What do you want, Conlon?” Jack answered, not needing to look at the ID.

“I want you to step for a weekend.” Spot replied, not bothering with pleasantries, “I’m planning to take Tony to Boston in two weeks. I already worked it out with Albert and Jojo, all that’s left is making sure you don’t forget that you’re in charge of a twelve year old.”

“I can do it.” Jack grumbled, not pleased that Racer had obviously talked to Spot about things in detail.

“Really?” Spot was doubtful, “Because, somehow, I don’t think Racer will believe you. Figure it out.”

With that Spot hung up.

“Goodbye to you, too, asshole.” Jack griped down at his phone.

Taking a deep breath, he left the room and went back into the kitchen, where Racer was now sitting at the table and helping Romeo with his math homework, the smell of cooking lasagna filling the air.

“For the next week, let me take over everything.” Jack made his presence known, “I’ll be the one to keep the apartment clean, to get Romeo to school on time, to be the one the school calls if they need anything. You may have to still cook because we both know I’m hopeless at it and we don’t have the budget to get take-out all week. But everything else, I’ll do. And if I don’t do it, then you can ground me or whatever.”

Race contemplated what was being said for a minute before finally agreeing, “Okay. You can start now. The steps are in the textbook.”

Jack hesitantly took Race’s seat and pulled the textbook over to him to go over the steps, dread filling him when he realized nothing on the page made sense.

“I was just kidding,” Racer laughed, “I’ll still help him with his homework. Lord knows you barely graduated.”

Jack sagged in relief at not having to help with the math homework, but mostly because Racer wasn’t mad at him...or as mad at him anymore.


End file.
